As the EU’s new budgets approach, lessors and new entrants join forces to call for a strong, forward-looking successor to the European Rail Joint Undertaking under the new European Research Framework Programme.

Together with ALLRAIL and ERFA, AERRL urges the European Union to take the opportunity offered by the deployment of FRMCS to review and refine its approach of ERTMS deployment.

In August, AERRL had published a position paper on ERTMS deployment where we had advocated for a fast and coordinated roll-out of FRMCS that is not dependent on the versions of ETCS higher than SV2.0.

This new document, co-signed by other representative bodies of the rail sector, explains in detail why and how we need to achieve this important goal.

AERRL/CER/EIM/UIP/UITP/UNIFE defined a common position on the new Connecting Europe Facility, where they call for an ambitious co-funding. This paper contains the AERRL’s key priorities.

AERRL reiterates its commitment to the objective of creating a Single European Railway Area. Significant progress towards this objective can be achieved through the deployment of ERTMS. For this reason, we are publishing a paper on what we believe are the necessary steps and strategic priorities to achieve the goal.

AERRL wants to express its commitment to the DAC Common Sector Statement signed in 2023 and what it stands for. This paper is intended as a way to showcase our worries and raise awareness of what we believe are and will be the obstacles to a full DAC deployment for locomotives.
Contrary to the EU carbon neutrality targets, the market share of rail freight is today declining. A strong push for innovation and digitalization is therefore needed to stop and invert this trend. Coordinated deployment of technologies such as ERTMS and DAC is considered the main pillar of this transformation. AERRL members today represent 64% of the locomotive leasing market in Europe . Lessors are today major investors in the railway sector and catalysts of innovation. We, therefore, welcome the uptake of interest in the Digital Automatic Coupler (DAC) project and its positive development. Nonetheless, there are some points of concern for locomotive keepers that we would like to address collaboratively.

In the context of the ongoing implementation of the centralised registration function as the European Vehicle Register (EVR), AERRL, ALLRAIL, CER, ERFA, UIC, UIP, UIRR and UNIFE have defined a new common position about the use of the current European Vehicle Number and a vision of its evolution.

In a joint declaration, the rail sector expresses concerns regarding the forthcoming revision of the technical specifications for interoperability and reminds its commitment in supporting the European Commission and ERA on the long-term evolution of the TSI’s and their contribution to the development of an efficient and competitive European railway system.

In this joint statement, AERRL expresses its support to ERA as registration entity if applicants remain free to choose a national registration entity.